


Utterly

by onebatch2batch



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Frank takes care of her, I love it when Frank takes care of Karen, In case you guys haven't guessed yet, Karen gets herself in trouble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 03:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12998859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onebatch2batch/pseuds/onebatch2batch
Summary: Karen gets herself into trouble, and Frank helps out after the fact. Tumblr prompt. Post-TPSFeat. Frank super worried and Karen pretty chill about the whole thing





	Utterly

It was precisely 10:17pm on a Tuesday and Karen Page knew for a fact that she was completely and utterly Fucked. 

The night had started off simple enough. She had left work and driven to the docks downtown, planning on staking out the location for a story. She had a source that was very insistent about an illegal arms deal happening in this area, and she wanted to catch them in the act—or at the very least, get a hint of when it was going down. She had parked next to an enormous crate and killed her engine, sitting back to wait. 

A couple hours passed before anything notable had happened. She had just glanced up from browsing on her phone to see several men gathered about 100 meters away, unloading numerous boxes from the back of a truck. Karen cursed, annoyed at her own inability to keep focused. She knew that it was unlikely she would hear what they were saying, so she snapped a couple pictures and opened the car door to sneak closer on foot. Unfortunately, she had underestimated how far the door was from the shipping crate next to her.

The crack of her metal door hitting the shipping container sucked the air from her lungs. She closed her eyes and begged every god in existence that no one had heard. For a moment, everything was quiet. 

Suddenly: “Hey…hey! Get her!” and then pounding footsteps headed her way. 

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_!” Karen breathed, slamming her door closed and throwing the car into reverse. If she could drive away fast enough, there was little enough light that they wouldn’t see her license plate…she hoped. There were several particularly angry men running towards her, guns in hand. “God damn it!”

Karen put the car in drive as soon as possible and floored it, hearing the sharp smacks of bullets hitting the side of her car. She breathed more curses, and then screamed as passenger side glass shattered and several bullets hit her dashboard. As she drove off she watched the men get further and further in her rearview, terrified. 

Once she was far enough away and she was sure no one was following her, she headed home, gripping the steering wheel tightly. 

\--

Karen was eternally thankful when she returned to her apartment in (mostly) one piece. She avoided everyone she could in the halls and immediately locked the door behind her, groaning in pain. She had come down from her adrenaline high, and was starting to feel some pain. In the bathroom, she surveyed her reflection. 

The glass shattering had certainly done some damage. She had minor cuts all over, from her face to her fingers. There was an especially large cut on her bicep, and she winced when she realized she was going to need stitches. No way she was going out this late, especially if they _were_ looking for her, and she’d patched up other people before (mainly Matt and Frank, but that’s much more than the average person, she imagined). How hard would it be on her own?

“Damn,” she muttered, going in the kitchen to grab a dishtowel. She was not going to ruin a perfectly good bathroom hand-towel because she was off gallivanting like an FBI agent unsupervised. That would just be icing on the cake. As she reached the kitchen, she heard three distinct taps on the window. 

That marked the second time of the evening where she knew she was completely and utterly Fucked. 

Karen groaned, steeling herself, then walked to the window. She lifted the latch for Frank to come through, hoping he would be too distracted with whatever he’d come over for to notice. He slid through the window gracefully, glancing at her, then took another double take. Immediately, she saw him shift into high alert. If she had to admit it to herself, it was kind of endearing how protective he was—he was always going the extra mile to make sure she was safe (including coming through the window, to ensure no one in the hall recognized him). She schooled her expression into something a little more casual and a little less teenage girl. 

“Karen…what happened.”

Karen frowned at him and shut the window pointedly, but the gesture was ruined with her wince. “You know you can—ow—use the actual door, right?” 

“Karen.” Frank’s voice was a low growl that sent shivers up her spine. “ _What happened_?”

She was used to his anger, and she knew it wasn’t pointed at her. “I was just chasing a story and got a little…caught up. And now I need a new windshield. It’s really nothing.” Karen waved a hand, but Frank frowned at her. He was trying to get a hold on his impulse to get the answers and get even, she could tell. He looked about ready to crawl out of his skin, but then all he did was point to the bathroom, surprising her. 

“Come on, that one needs stitches. Sit.”

Which is how Karen ended up sitting on her own toilet cover, with Frank’s enormous shoulders hunched over her as he went to work cleaning her wound and closing it up. She had never been at the receiving end of Frank’s medical expertise, and she was surprised at how gentle he was. He made sure there was no glass in the wound, and then grabbed the hydrogen peroxide. 

“This is going to hurt,” he warned her, and then dumped it on the cut unceremoniously. Karen stifled her yelp and grabbed his forearm, squeezing as the pain slowly receded. 

“Jeeeee-suhs,” she groaned, tears prickling in her eyes. Frank set the bottle down and began to thread the needle, casting her frustrated looks from the corner of his eye. 

Karen ignored it, for the first minute or two. Then she sighed. “Look, it was dumb, I know. I didn’t—ow—even know if they were going to be there for sure and—ow!—I wasn’t paying attention…” She explained quickly what had happened as his frown deepened. “…and I know that you’re angry but—“

“Angry?” Frank’s hands stilled and he met her eyes incredulously. “’m not angry. I’m just--…you could’ve been killed, Karen.”

Karen didn’t know what to say to that, so she looked down at her lap. Frank huffed and finished up her stitches, taping some gauze to soak up any extra blood. Suddenly he was crouched in front of her, cotton ball in hand. He pressed it to the smaller cuts on her face, and she watched the expression on his face curiously. He seemed to be far away, deep in thought, and she was glad that the anger had left his face. Instead, his eyebrows were drawn and his lips were tugged into a small frown. Karen reached up and brushed her fingers over the deep V between his brows. 

Frank stilled in response, looking at her questioningly, and Karen was suddenly struck by her second stupid idea of the night. 

_Well, I lived through the first one,_ she thought, then leaned forward and captured his lips with her own. 

His response was lagged, and she almost pulled away, thinking she’d gone too far. They’d become much closer over the last several months and she sometimes caught him staring at her like he was coming to some sort of conclusion, but maybe she misread him. Maybe he was really thinking about leaving and never coming back. Maybe she just pushed a man who lost his family and his life too far and this was it, and he’d be done with her. _That was that._

Before she could pull back and apologize, or try to scramble up some kind of excuse so he wouldn’t leave, his hand went to cradle her neck. She felt his other hand touch her waist lightly as he deepened the kiss, making a noise low in his throat. The skin on her arms prickled as his tongue touched hers. She was struck both with relief, and how natural it felt to have him like this, his thumb brushing over her hipbone and breath hot on her lips. 

She pulled away to look at him, eyes sparkling wickedly. The kiss and the relief made her feel like she was high, and she felt emboldened by the passion in his expression. “So all I need is a couple scratches to get you to kiss me, huh, Frank? I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

Frank rolled his eyes, but his lips were curving up into a smile. He thumbed his nose, sitting back on his heels to find another cotton ball. 

“Next time my ass, Page.”

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by lareinerousse: "The first time after the end of TP when Karen gets (probably harmlessly) threatened because of her job (unrelated to the punisher) and how Frank reacts." and fictitiousflirt "Maybe Karen getting hurt and frank having to take care of her? Like a broken bone or a concussion or something?" on Tumblr!
> 
> Sorry it took so long!!


End file.
